"Stephen Howard" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 9 Oct 2004 15:42:49 +0000 (UTC), "Franz Heymann"
wrote:


"Stephen Howard" wrote in message
.. .

I thoroughly recommend a book called Mother Tongue, by Bill
Bryson.

I have. Although Bryson is not in the same category of authority as
the folk who are responsible for the OED, his book is to be
recommended most thoroughly, as is everything else he has written..

It's not a question of authority - the OED is a book of reference,

Quite. That is what I call a book of authority.

Bill's book is a description of patterns of usage and the evolution
of
English.
And as regards authority it depends on whether you view dictionaries
as being prescriptive or descriptive. Both have their drawbacks.

I use the OED as if it were prescriptive of the English language, and
have managed very well in that mode for all my life.

Should you ever read it I think you'll be appalled to find that
you're
just as guilty as the next 'ignorant wordsmith' when it comes to
twisting definitions - and you'll also discover that many of your
linguistic tenets have extremely suspect origins ( such as the
venerable OED ).

....and somewhere back in the 16th century there's an URGler
who's
completely bemused at both your use and spelling of the word
'futile'...and yet another who's wondering what on earth tennis
has
to
do with the topic in question.

I fully realise that languages evolve.

So why the pedantry then?

What pedantry?

I also reslise that the evolution is steered by those least
equipped
to sensibly further the language.

Now that's just plain laughable, if not the height of snobbery.

Then so be it.

We speak a language that was, at one point in time, regarded as the
language of the uneducated peasant, and it certainly doesn't seem to
have done the language any harm at all. Quite the contrary - its
vitality is breathtaking in its depth.

I also realise that one should restrain the process from proceeding
too fast, otherwise confusion
results from the reader misunderstanding what the writer meant.

And just how do you propose to define what is and isn't too fast?
A couple of hundred years? A few decades?
You'd be up for a lot of flak....and you'd better be careful where
you
place that line or that could mean you're either in for some
criticism...or someone's going to start chucking anti-aircraft fire
at
you....
Either option appeals

Have you noticed what a merry mix up the Dutch language has become
through embracing the worst elements of many other languages?
Have you noticed how much English is suffering from accepting so
much
of the worst elements of American slang?

Gosh....and that would be something the English language has never
entertained before, eh? Just where d'you think the modern English
language came from???

Over an evolutionary period. The Dutch language became muddied over a
period of only a generation or two.

Obviously you feel a need to draw a linguistic line, but where in
time
do you propose to place that line? Today...yesterday...last year?
How about the dawn of Old English - assuming you could find it ( not
that you'd have quite so many words to play with )?
Many distinguished scholars have attempted the very same thing - and
all have failed spectacularly...and a bloody good job too!

To attempt to maintain a status quo when it comes to the English
language is a cause so Quixotic in its intent that it borders on
bizarre fetishism - and Joseph Priestly dismissed the notion of the
formation of an academy to arrest the natural development of the
English language as being "unsuitable to the genius of a free
nation... We need make no doubt but that the best forms of speech
will
establish themselves through their own superior excellence".

'Nuff said.

You're telling me.

Let me summarise my position before I call it a day:

A language which is allowed to develop in a completely unfettered way
acquires a huge baggage of redundant grammatical nonsense which
continues to grow as time passes.
My mother tongue has a language academy which defines the state of the
language at any time.
Some of the effects of this are that:
It is totally phonetic. Spelling exercises are unknown in school.
It uses unly 22 letters of the alphabet.
It has only 3 tenses. That, contrary to what you might think, does
not limit the range of temporal relationships which may be expressed
in the language.
It has no concept of gender
There are no strong verbs.All tenses are constructed using the same
formulation.
There are no conjugations of verbs.
There are no declensions of nouns.
None of these presented any obstacles to my learning mathematical,
scientific and engineering subjects at University, except for the lack
of specialist textbooks.
It has a literature which is very rich in comparison with the size of
its population.

Franz